The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
